


Homeward Bound

by tansybells



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mermaid, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hilda Showers and Oh No Mermaid, Inappropriate Humor, Kissing It Better, Mermaid Transformation, Mostly Fluff, Trans Female Character, Trans Hilda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25424356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansybells/pseuds/tansybells
Summary: Instead of two legs, Hilda has a long, scaled, dark pink fish’s tail. It ends in a rippling, fan-like fin that drips bathwater back into the tub as it curves out of the confines of the tub and sways slowly through the air.Edelgard can’t wrap her mind around what she’s looking at. Careful to leave the hand that Hilda holds where it is—her girlfriend thrives on physical contact and she needs that comfort right now—she uses her other hand to rub at the spot on her forehead where a headache is starting to build.This isn’t real,she thinks.This can't be real.Edelgard tries to help her girlfriend through some major life changes.mermaid!Hilda AU ♡
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53
Collections: Fire Emblem Trans Week 2020!





	Homeward Bound

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Women Loving War Criminals wlw mini-bang. The accompanying art by Imani can be found [here!](https://officialedelgard.tumblr.com/post/624291936324435968/a-hildagard-for-an-exchange-in-the-wlwc)
> 
> It also coincides with the [FE Trans Week](https://twitter.com/fetransweek)'s prompt, _Urban Fantasy!_
> 
> Enjoy! ♡

“Edelgard?”

Hilda’s voice, sharp and piercing, cuts through Edelgard’s sleep like a knife. Edelgard groans and rolls over on her half of the bed, pulling her blanket over her head as she does so. Her girlfriend tends to make a habit of making mountains out of molehills, so she’s not overly concerned.

“Edelgard!”

Hilda calls her name again, her voice noticeably high with panic. Edelgard starts to actually wake up. Turning her head, she calls out over her shoulder, “What’s wrong, Hilda?” Her voice comes out thicker and groggier than she expects, but Hilda’s showering in the bathroom directly adjacent to their bedroom. She should be able to hear her. Just in case, however, Edelgard clears her throat and tries again. “Hilda, are you okay?”

“Edelgard, can you  _ please  _ come here?”

Hilda’s voice wobbles, like she’s on the verge of tears, and it’s then that Edelgard realizes that something’s  _ actually  _ going on. Hilda fake cries a lot, and she’s used to the sound of crocodile tears. But there’s a different quality that her voice adopts when she’s being serious.

And right now, she’s being serious.

Edelgard throws off her blanket and, ignoring the instinct to pull her feet back up onto the bed instead of making contact with the cold tile floor, runs as quickly as she can into the bathroom.

The door is open, like normal. Hilda likes being able to hold conversations while she’s in the shower, and since it’s the only bathroom in their apartment, it’s just more convenient to leave it unlocked.

“What is it?” Edelgard asks, squinting through the steam drifting in the room. The air is heady with the scent of Hilda’s thickly sweet body wash, and while Edelgard likes the flowery smell enough to let Hilda cuddle up with her after she showers, it’s a little overwhelming to be right in the middle of the source. Most upsetting, however, is the fact that she can’t see Hilda’s standing silhouette against the shower curtain. “Hilda? Where are you?”

“I’m here,” Hilda replies weakly. The rings holding up the shower curtain rattle across the curtain rod as she pulls the colorful sheet of vinyl aside to reveal that she’s got her head propped up against the back of the bathtub.

“Did you slip?” Edelgard asks, hurrying forward, her pulse noticeably picking up as she notices that Hilda is lying down on the tub’s porcelain bottom. “Did you break something?”

Hilda giggles, the sound concerningly loose—like she’s on the verge of losing her sanity, Edelgard worries—and reaches out one hand for Edelgard to take. In doing so, she reveals her bareness. But that isn’t the issue—Edelgard is well aware of what Hilda looks like sans clothing, and frankly she’d be more concerned if her girlfriend had gone into the shower with clothes on.

No.

The  _ issue  _ is that little spots of color seem to have popped up all over her chest. A dark, pearlescent pink, unnatural enough that Edelgard knows they aren’t from picking at her skin, they crawl up her torso in thick, scaly patches and cover her breasts almost entirely. “They’re hard!” Hilda says in a high, shrill tone, taking Edelgard’s hand and guiding it so that her palm sits right against the spots. “And they  _ itch _ !”

Edelgard shudders at the touch. Like Hilda says, they’re hard, chitinous little spots. They’re raised from her skin, and ridged, but not uncomfortable to the touch. And to her surprise, they’re  _ warm.  _ She wants to pull her hand away, but Hilda seems close enough to panicking that she can’t bring herself to do so. So she stays there at Hilda’s side, gently running her fingers up and down the clusters of scales. Her nails catch on the way back up. Edelgard tries to not grimace. Hilda  _ needs  _ her to not grimace.

“How do they feel?” Edelgard asks Hilda quietly. “Do they hurt?”

Hilda laughs again. “That’s not the worst part!” she informs Edelgard with a frenzied smile as she reaches down. Edelgard lets her gaze follow Hilda’s hand to the giant towel that had been covering her from the stomach down. With a dramatic flourish and a horrible groan, Hilda pulls the towel aside.

The scales that cover Hilda’s stomach trail down, the patches becoming thicker and thicker the further down her body they go. And as Edelgard looks down past her belly button, past the apex of her thighs, she realizes that Hilda’s legs are no longer separated. Instead of two legs, Hilda has a long, scaled, dark pink fish’s tail. It ends in a rippling, fan-like fin that drips bathwater back into the tub as it curves out of the confines of the tub and sways slowly through the air. 

Edelgard can’t wrap her mind around what she’s looking at. Careful to leave the hand that Hilda holds where it is—her girlfriend thrives on physical contact and she needs that comfort right now—she uses her other hand to rub at the spot on her forehead where a headache is starting to build.

_ This isn’t real, _ she thinks. Is Hilda pranking her? It’s an option; she’s seen those pictures of models wearing form-fitting mermaid tails. But she also knows that they’re super expensive, and while Hilda’s got a decent inheritance coming her way one day, she doesn’t have it  _ yet.  _ And besides, Hilda’s started to breathe much faster and harder, like she’s about to hyperventilate now that her tail is revealed for the both of them to see.

“Has this happened before?” Edelgard asks gently.

“What the  _ fuck  _ do you mean, Edelgard?” Hilda replies, recoiling like she’s offended by the question. “Have I turned into a mermaid in the middle of a shower before? No!”

“I’m just asking.” Edelgard struggles to keep her voice calm; it’s what Hilda needs of her. “I’m trying to figure out what happened, that’s all.”

“I was showering, and everything started feeling all wobbly. So I sat down, and it just—it just  _ happened _ .” Hilda’s voice breaks, and she curls in on herself as she starts wiping tears away from her eyes. Regretting her line of questioning, Edelgard leans further into the shower and uses her free hand to gently rub Hilda’s back. She tries to avoid the strangely scaley growths as she does so.

“We’ll figure something out,” Edelgard croons, trying to comfort her. “Come on, let’s get you out of the tub. I don’t think it’s doing you any good.”

“How?” Hilda wails. “I can’t walk, Edelgard!”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay.” Edelgard brushes her hand across Hilda’s damp hair, and gently kisses the top of her head. “I can carry you.”

Hilda appears to consider the offer, and barely a moment passes before she nods and wraps her arms around Edelgard’s neck. Taking a deep breath, Edelgard props one arm up behind Hilda’s back and puts her other into the bathwater to scoop up her girlfriend’s tail. It seems to be made out of the same stuff as the scales covering Hilda’s chest, and she doesn’t allow herself to recoil away.

Edelgard grunts as she pulls up, straining to pick Hilda’s newly changed body up out of the water, but she manages to do so. She moves quickly after that, careful to avoid stepping on the cascading drops of water that fall from Hilda down onto the tile floor and risk sending the both of them falling to the ground. After stumbling into the bedroom, Edelgard lets Hilda down onto their bed and returns to the bathroom to grab their shared hair dryer from among their array of medicine bottles. She doesn’t let herself think very hard about its actual efficacy, but she needs to feel like she’s doing  _ something  _ to help her girlfriend.

“How are you feeling?” Edelgard asks as she plugs the dryer in above Hilda’s phone charger and turns it on. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to call my mom,” Hilda replies immediately, even as she grasps around for her phone on the bedside table beside her. “Mom should know. Mom should—”

Hilda has no hope of finding her phone by grasping around blindly, so Edelgard hands it to her. Hilda unlocks it and, tapping her mother’s name on the contact list, turns on the speakerphone while the dial tone rings. Edelgard starts running the hair dryer up and down along Hilda’s long, slender tail.

“Hello?” Hilda’s mother picks up after the phone rings a few times, and to Edelgard’s relief, Hilda relaxes quickly at the sound of her mom’s voice.

“Mom?” Hilda’s voice trembles, and Edelgard turns down the intensity of the hair dryer so they can actually hold a conversation. “Mom, something weird is going on.”

“What is it, sweetie?”

Hilda’s lips begin to tremble, and she can’t seem to get the words out, so Edelgard steps up to the plate.

“Something strange has happened, Ms. Lear,” Edelgard says as she leans over and, as soon as Hilda scoots over enough for Edelgard to get a leg up on the bed by her, wraps her arm around her shoulders in a one-armed embrace. “Hilda was in the shower, and—”

“I have a fish tail!” Hilda blurts out. Edelgard buries her face in Hilda’s shoulder to stifle her nervous laughter. She doesn’t  _ mean  _ to laugh, but hearing the incredibly blunt way in which Hilda sums up their situation makes it clear just how  _ absurd  _ the whole thing is. She feels Hilda frown, and her girlfriend leans over to gently swat at her.

“A  _ fish tail _ .” Clara Lear repeats Hilda’s claim, and to Edelgard’s surprise, she doesn’t immediately start claiming the both of them are insane. Instead, all she does is sigh. It’s a long, drawn-out sigh, and Edelgard gets the feeling that she’s putting off something inevitable. After a few, strained moments in which Hilda’s breathing becomes increasingly irregular, Ms. Lear finally speaks up.

“I was wondering if this day would come.” Edelgard’s heart lurches, and judging from the way Hilda stiffens beneath her, she can only imagine the way she must be feeling. “Hilda, honey, I need to make sure you’re sitting down.”

“I don’t have legs!” Hilda cries out with frustration. “I have a fish tail,  _ Mom,  _ so I can’t fucking stand up in the first place!”

Edelgard says nothing, just holds her close and keeps running the hair dryer over the scales of Hilda’s new, foreign tail. There’s not anything she  _ can  _ say, and she’s got the feeling that if she does try to say something, she’ll only get in the way of the conversation Hilda so desperately needs with her mother.

“I’m sorry, honey.” Ms. Lear apologizes. “This is just some big news, and I want to make sure—”

“I’m not an old lady, Mom,” Hilda cuts her off again. “I’m not going to have a heart attack and drop dead!”

“Let’s hear her out,” Edelgard murmurs, rubbing her hand across Hilda’s bare back and trying to be quiet enough that Ms. Lear can’t hear her. Hilda nods.

Over the phone, she hears Ms. Lear taking a deep breath, almost like she’s steeling herself for what’s to come. And then, she lays the truth out on the table for all to see.

“Your father is a merman,” she finally says. Edelgard’s heart bottoms out. It’s not exactly  _ news  _ at this point, but it’s nice to have confirmation. Hilda lets her phone fall and land on a bit of bunched-up blanket as she reaches out for Edelgard and clings to her breathlessly. Unable to see the way Hilda reacted to the news, Ms. Lear continues with her tale. “ _ That’s _ why he’s never been around, Hilda, not because we split when you were a baby.”

“ _ When _ were you ever gonna tell me this?” Hilda asks as soon as Edelgard sets down the hair dryer in favor of picking up Hilda’s phone and holds it up so she can talk. “Were you just gonna let me think that all my life?”

“How could I ever explain it to you?” Ms. Lear’s voice cracks in the beginning of tears, and it occurs to Edelgard that maybe this conversation is just as difficult for Clara as it is for Hilda. “How could I explain that your father  _ didn’t  _ abandon you, that he and your brother live less than a half-hour drive away—”

“I have a  _ brother _ ?” Hilda screeches. “Goddammit, Mom, do I have a secret stepdad and shit, too? Do I have a baby sister?” Her grip on Edelgard tightens. “Mom, what’s up?”

“No, no, honey,” Ms. Lear hurries to assure her. “It’s just your father and your brother, Holst. He was  _ born  _ with a tail, so your father took him back to the ocean immediately.” Edelgard strokes Hilda’s hair, running her fingers through the damp strands gently, just to remind Hilda that she’s not completely alone in this. She can’t imagine how her girlfriend must be feeling, having her world turned upside down like this. “We tried so hard to not have any more children,” Ms. Lear continues, “especially since I rarely got to see Holst, never mind  _ raise  _ him, but then I got pregnant with you.”

“Wow, I can’t believe why,” Hilda mutters to Edelgard. “It’s  _ super  _ surprising to hear that human birth control doesn’t work on mermaid spunk.” Edelgard snorts in laughter, caught off-guard by Hilda’s impulse to joke around.

“Good to know,” Edelgard jokes in turn before lightly kissing Hilda’s cheek. “I’ll have to keep that in mind if I ever need a baby to trap you in a relationship for your money.” Hilda sticks her tongue out at Edelgard, which makes Edelgard feel a little better about the situation. Hilda’s definitely deflecting from her actual feelings about what she’s learning, and if that’s what Hilda needs to do, then she’ll go along with it. 

Over the phone, Ms. Lear clears her throat. “Are you two done flirting yet? Or should I call back later?”

Edelgard buries her burning cheeks in the curve where Hilda’s shoulder and neck meet as she realizes they’ve been overheard. Hilda plucks the phone from Edelgard’s grasp and holds it up to her mouth. “Nah, Mom. You keep talking.”

“Alright, honey.” Edelgard smiles into Hilda’s skin, presses another kiss there, and Ms. Lear picks up the story again. “When you came out entirely human, we decided that you would stay with me. And your dad left. Just like that. Sometimes, we’d meet for a night. We’d talk, eat something, maybe find a hotel for the night—”

“ _ Mom! _ ”

“—Hilda, do you need  _ more  _ information about where you came from? Or am I wrong in my assumption that you and Edelgard—oh, how would you say it— _ get it on _ ?”

Hilda grumbles, “Yeah, okay. Point taken.”

“Anyway, you should get Edelgard to drive you down to the coastline. If you jump down from the pier and go to the bottom of the ocean floor, swim on from there, you should be able to find him. Just ask for Holst—that’s your brother, remember—or Lord Goneril. They should take you to him, okay? Just…” Trailing off, Ms. Lear sniffles, which prompts Edelgard to frown. She isn’t sure where this is going, but she has the distinct sensation that she isn’t going to like it.

Almost like Ms. Lear picks up on her concern, however, she seems to change course. “Just be careful, Hilda.” 

“Yeah. I will, Mom.” Hilda smiles thinly. Edelgard wants to wrap her up and never, ever let her go. “Love you.”

“I love you too, honey.”

With that, Hilda ends the call and leans her head onto Edelgard’s. “Well,” she mumbles, “ _ that  _ was fun.” Edelgard is fairly certain that Hilda’s so quiet only because she’s tired now, and she can’t blame her. It’s difficult to believe that it’s only been less than an hour since Hilda showered, setting all of this into motion, and yet Hilda’s life has been entirely turned upside down.

Edelgard sighs and lets her hand tangle a little more in Hilda’s hair. “We should probably get you down to the ocean,” she suggests. “I think your mom is about as much of an expert on mermaids as we’re going to get—” Hilda chuckles darkly, and Edelgard laughs with her, “—and if she thinks we should go, we should go. Okay?”

Hilda groans dramatically and lets herself go limp in Edelgard’s loose embrace. “I don’t want to leave you, El.”

“I know. But I’d rather you go than have to watch you shrivel up like an old lady.”

The bad joke is worth the way Hilda reaches out and whacks her arm. “I will have you know,  _ Edelgard, _ ” she says, scandalized, “that if I die— _ if,  _ mind you—I will be fresh and young as the morning dew! I will be gorgeous and plump and absolutely  _ stunning _ , and you will have to tell me so every single day or I will dive into the ocean and leave you forever.”

“Please don’t joke like that,” Edelgard replies in a somber voice. She finds herself clutching Hilda close, only now realizing the truth of what’s about to happen. Hilda’s about to leave her, for who knows how long, and she doesn’t know when they’ll be together again. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll be back.” Hilda chuckles. Reaching behind her, she starts probing across Edelgard’s face. Edelgard remains obediently still until Hilda’s fingers come across her nose and tugs on it. “You don’t have to worry about that, okay? I’ll be back, and then you’re gonna have to put up with me for the rest of your life.”

Her silliness, intentional as Edelgard knows it is, has its intended effect and brings a smile to Edelgard’s face. And as she buries her face in Hilda’s sweet-smelling hair, she closes her eyes and lets herself hold on for just one moment more. She’s not ready to let go.

But she has to.

**+++**

The three days after Edelgard drives Hilda down to the coastline, brings her to the water, and watches her swim away are the worst days of Edelgard’s life.

She’s happy for Hilda, of course—her girlfriend is being reunited with her long-lost father and brother and that must be the most wonderful experience—but Edelgard had forgotten how much better her life has been with Hilda in it. They haven’t been together as long as a married couple might have been, but her life is  _ fuller  _ for Hilda’s presence. She’s  _ happier. _

And now that happiness is gone with her.

She spends every evening down by the water’s edge, walking along the line where the land meets the sea for hours on end. She leaves a single trail of footprints in the sand behind her. Not for the first time, she wishes that she weren’t so scared of the water. That she could just dive in and swim down to wherever Hilda is. But she knows that if she were to do that, she’d simply sink like a stone.

As it is, all she can do is trust in Hilda’s promise to return.

**+++**

On the fourth evening, she sits on the pier with a sketchbook and her charcoals and simply draws. She’s never been the greatest artist, but her attempts to draw are her coping in the best way she knows how. It’s one of those things where Hilda  _ knows  _ of her pastime, but despite her girlfriend’s prying, it’s one of those things that Edelgard simply cannot bring herself to share.

It lets her feel like she’s  _ alone _ , as opposed to lonely _. _

Tonight, she tries to sketch out the magnificent smile that had spread across Hilda’s face as her skin had come into contact with the ocean water so many days ago. It was like she’d finally found the place where she belonged. Something in Edelgard’s chest tears open at the memory. It feels like some sort of sign—that Hilda hadn’t been able to feel truly at home until she’d been returned to the ocean. What does that say about Edelgard herself, and the relationship that the two of them had fought so hard to achieve? What does that say about the lazy contentment that always spread across Hilda’s face when she curled up in Edelgard’s arms? Doesn’t Hilda belong  _ there _ ?

Thick drops of water fall on the charcoal sketch on her lap, and she doesn’t realize that it’s not simply sea spray until she moves to inspect the damage done to the work and another drop falls onto her hand.

Does that mean she has never been enough?

She sets aside her sketchbook on the empty space beside her and sets her face in her hands, splaying her fingers apart so she can still see the sea through them. She doesn’t understand how the sea can be  _ home.  _ All she can think of is the way she’s never stepped foot in the water for fear of losing her life, and yet somehow, it’s still managed to take away everything she cares about.

With a strangled sob, Edelgard scoops up the small, surprisingly heavy wooden box that she uses to keep her charcoals in and throws it, as hard and as far as she can. It flies through the air, whistling with the force of her throw, the shallow drawers shuttering open and letting their contents loose with a series of quiet splashes. Edelgard closes her eyes and waits for the sweet release of the final splash, for the gentle catharsis that is sure to come, but come it never does.

The thought that she’s surely going crazy crosses her mind, and Edelgard looks up, desperate to see some sort of ripple or  _ something  _ to show that yes, she  _ did  _ throw her box of art supplies, but nothing is there.

Instead, the water begins to bubble up as something rises to the surface. It swells, like something beneath is straining to burst out and be seen. And all of a sudden, the tension  _ pops  _ and all of Edelgard’s fear goes with it.

All that remains, is Hilda.

She smiles up at Edelgard from where she’s suspended in the water, her pink hair floating out in a ring around her. She’s happier than Edelgard’s ever seen, more  _ alive  _ than Edelgard’s ever seen, and something about the way she beams up at Edelgard lets her know without a shadow of a doubt that she’s only so happy because Edelgard is there to greet her.

Edelgard doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t  _ think  _ before she gets up on the pier and jumps feet-first into the water. There’s no fear, no phobia, no sensation of certain death—only Hilda and the simple, overwhelming joy that  _ she came back _ .

The water is freezing cold, as the sun went down an hour ago, and it startles Edelgard to her senses. What is she doing? She can’t swim! She  _ knows  _ this, and yet she’s floundering through the water, sinking,  _ drowning _ , the last of the air from her burning lungs escaping from her mouth as she silently screams—

A strong pair of arms catch her before she hits the sandy bottom that is sure to be her grave. When Edelgard opens her eyes to see the angel responsible for reuniting her with her brothers and sisters, all she sees is Hilda.

Determination shines in Hilda’s eyes as she holds Edelgard close, the powerful movement of her tail bringing them closer to shore with every flick. Edelgard stares up at her, only the force of the quickly moving ocean water against her face keeping her mouth from falling open in awe at the sight. Her mind reels and all she can bring herself to do is curl in on herself and let Hilda bear her across the ever-moving current until their heads break through the surface of the water.

“Hilda!” Edelgard gasps in delight as Hilda holds her aloft, maintains her buoyancy despite her added weight, and she wraps her arms around Hilda’s neck. “Hilda, you came back!”

“Of course I did, dummy!” Hilda laughs, the sound coming out slightly garbled thanks to the way Edelgard’s actions make them bob up and down in the water. Edelgard shrieks a little bit when they go a little low for comfort, but despite the fear constantly threatening to overtake her, she knows that Hilda will never let her drown.

“You were gone for—for so long!” Edelgard chokes out through her terror.

“What?” Hilda cocks her head to the side. “Babe, I was gone for like, three days. Did you miss me that badly?” She hesitates, then giggles softly. “Oh, whoops. There’s the sand. Gimme a sec, I gotta change back. Get my land legs back, like the pirates said in movies.”

She pushes Edelgard forward towards the shore. Edelgard scrabbles out for her with clawed fingers, desperate to keep that contact between them, desperate to  _ not drown,  _ but she finds that her bare feet hit the sand of the ground beneath her just as soon as Hilda lets her down. She stumbles forward onto the dry land, her legs collapsing beneath her as soon as she knows that she won’t immediately be drawn back into the starving current.

As she rolls onto her back to stare at the fading light above and connect her back to the firm sensation that  _ no, she is not about to drown,  _ Edelgard catches sight of her girlfriend standing up out of the water and dusting imaginary pants.

“Did you change back already?” Edelgard asks, propping herself up on her elbows. It’s an uncomfortable position, but it’s the easiest way to keep her eyes on her favorite person in the world. “That was—that was very,  _ very  _ fast.”

“Aw, babe.” Hilda lies down on the sand next to Edelgard and smiles at her. “You know I’m no stranger to dramatic physical changes. And thinking about it, this was a  _ lot  _ less work.”

With a laugh at the ridiculous truth in Hilda’s words, Edelgard lets herself fall back down onto the sand. Rolling to face Hilda, she starts leisurely toying with the dozens of shells and necklaces and baubles that hang from Hilda’s neck and throughout her hair.

“I really missed you so much,” she murmurs, finding a small baby’s-ear shell among Hilda’s adornments and slotting her thumb into the soft curve that seems made for just that.

“It was just three days,” Hilda gently reminds her. “I’ve been away for longer for like, work.”

“I know,” Edelgard whines, and realizes just how much Hilda has rubbed off onto her as she does so. “I only—I  _ missed  _ you, okay? Don’t be mean about it.” Pressing her lips together, she shifts herself just a little closer to Hilda and hides her embarrassment deep in her girlfriend’s chest. She’s being awfully clingy, she knows—especially since Hilda’s got a point. She’s been on her own for longer. Something about this time, however, just feels so  _ different,  _ and she can’t explain why.

Hilda laughs and, pulling back so she can lift Edelgard’s chin up towards her, kisses her. Her lips taste like sea-salt and devotion, and Edelgard drinks her down like ambrosia. 

“Will you come home with me?” she whispers once they can finally stand to pull apart. With no little effort on her part, Hilda gets up on her feet before kneeling down to pick Edelgard up in her arms.

“El, I can’t believe you would  _ ever  _ think I wouldn’t.” Hilda smiles, and Edelgard muffles a surprised squeal as she’s lifted from the ground. “I’d be absolutely  _ miserable  _ if I had to stay down there all alone without you. Yeah, it was cool to meet my dad, and Holst is  _ awesome,  _ but I belong with you.”

Edelgard blushes and hides her face in her hands. To hear her unspoken fears assuaged so confidently is almost too much to bear, and the parallel between now and the way she’d carried Hilda from the bathtub so many days ago does nothing to still her beating heart.

She can’t believe how lucky she is to have such a loving partner. Though to her delight, as she peeks through her fingers and notes Hilda’s wide, proud, wonderful smile, Edelgard can only believe that Hilda might feel the same way.

**Author's Note:**

> Hilda's mother's name is Clara Lear. Clara, from the mother of the composer [Gustav Holst,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Holst) and Lear, from the fact that the origin of 'Goneril' seems to be from Shakespeare's [King Lear.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear)
> 
> Thanks to [Fox, who's been the mind and biological inspiration behind our long-lived mermaid AUs. I had to depend on her impressive memory several times. And additional thanks to ](LINK)[Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blooming_Spiderlily/pseuds/Blooming_Spiderlily) for her help in coming up with Ms. Lear's name, and her stellar work in beta-ing.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Have a lovely day ♡


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